Transmission Error, by Michael Kurland (trade pb)

Daniel Godfrey has been sentenced to be transported to a prison planet for a crime he didnt commit--but something goes wrong with the transmatter device, and Daniel and his companions are thrust onto an alien world whose people are more human than they have any right to be. This is a place where pirate ships fly, giant birds recite poetry and eat people, and the moving city of Beloparsus is slowly and ponderously approaching the sea. And somewhere on the planet, for a reason Daniel cannot guess, someone is trying to kill him. Another first-rate SF adventure by a master entertainer!

"Michael Kurland wanders along a tight-rope between story and style. His plots are imaginative and his relating of same is damnably clever. There are double and triple entendres and inside jokes about science fiction and its writers." --The Readers' Guide to Science Fiction

"American editor and author who writes adventure and spy novels as well as SF. Kurland's science fiction is fast paced, rich in descriptions of unusual societies, and filled with action." --The New Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.

"Kurland has the talent to create and sustain interesting characters and he paces his fiction so well it sails along with the reader in tow--happily in tow. A good read." --Science Fiction Review.